Page 72 of Tempting the Tiger
“Charlie three-one reporting no activity outside, over,” Cal says.
“Charlie one-four reporting aisles twenty-one to thirty clear,” I say. “The small meeting room, canteen, admin office, and men’s toilets are clear, over.”
“Charlie seven-three, check the remaining aisles and loading bay. We’re joining Charlie one-four, over,” Ethan says as he and Ayo jog over to join us.
“Roger that, over and out,” Kit says.
“What have we got?” Ethan asks me.
“Lance is in his office. Aire—” We turn and raise our guns as Aire appears from the door behind Ember.
Aire stiffens. “What’s going on?”
“We have a warrant for Lance’s arrest. Please step this way.” I gesture for Ember and Aire to enter the small meeting room. They go without protest, although neither look happy about it and both throw dirty looks my way.
“The rest of the warehouse is clear,” Kit says as they and Jet jog over to join us.
Ethan gives a sharp nod. “Good. Jet, guard those two.”
“Yes, Alpha.” Jet takes up position just inside the meeting room.
“Ayo and Bryn, you two get to work on taking down those protections around Lance’s office,” Ethan says, pointing.
Before I can lower my rifle and interpret that for Bryn, Ayo touches Bryn’s arm then gestures to Lance’s office as well. ‘We go.’
Bryn winks at me, then the two head off. My tiger is uneasy at Bryn being so close to Lance when the fae is unsecured, but Lance has shown no suggestion of coming out here, and my alpha-mate is more than capable of protecting them both should the need arise. And as Bryn reminded me, he can apparently handle Lance just fine.
“Let’s work on getting into these boxes,” Ethan says.
I retrieve one of the scanners and hand it to Kit. “This is the device I was telling you about.”
Because the scanners verify that the containment fields are intact, I speculated that they could be used to remove the containment fields as well. We won’t get into the boxes otherwise, and if we can use a scanner instead of asking Ayo to remove every single field, this process will be significantly faster. We did discuss getting one of the fae to input their access code and seeing if we could do it that way, but ultimately agreed they could potentially enter some sort of panic code to lock the place down, or alert someone in Realm Enterprises, depending on how much functionality the scanners actually have. The decision was taken to let Kit do what they do best.
They take the scanner from me. “This’ll be a piece of cake.”
The remaining boxes are spread out so Ethan and I gather some from the nearest aisle to open first. It’s not long before Kit holds the scanner out to Ethan. “Next time I want a better challenge. This thing is so basic my grandmother could have built it.”
‘It’ll bring down the containment fields now?’ I ask as Ethan takes it from them.
“Yup.”
“Good work,” Ethan says. “I want Ayo here to put a shield around each box just in case, so once we have Lance in custody we’ll get started.”
“Charlie eight-niner reporting in. We’re ready, over.” Ayo always sounds excited when he gets to use a call sign over comms, although there’s a more serious edge to his voice today.
“Gather a few more of these boxes while you wait for us, but stay alert in case he resists arrest,” Ethan says to Kit as he puts the scanner on a nearby shelf.
“Yes, Alpha,” they say.
Ethan and I take the stairs two at a time to join Ayo and Bryn. I lower my balaclava so that Bryn can see my lip patterns and facial expressions as I sign, ‘Are we clear to enter?’
He lowers his balaclava as well, his bright eyes and expressive hand movements betraying his excitement. ‘Yes. Ayo got all the protections down that I can see from the outside, but Lance undoubtedly knows we’re here. Be careful going in.’
‘Do you want to join Kit?’ I ask. It would be safer for him to be out of range.
He snorts, a little puff of smoke escaping. ‘And miss this? Even if the charges don’t stick, I want to see Lance’s face when you arrest him.’
“Are we good?” Ethan asks.
